Selective Service requires all US men, at age 18, to register for the military draft, even though no actual draft has occurred since 1973. A rival bill from Reps. Duncan Hunter (R – CA) and Ryan Zinke (R – MT) aims to extend the registration to include women in the name of “fairness.”

Rep. Mike Coffman (R – CO) has been leading the call to end the program for a long time now, insisting that not only has there been no draft in over 40 years, but that the Pentagon has never even considered a shift away from the all-volunteer military back toward the use of conscripts.

Fellow author Rep. Pete DeFazio (D – OR) noted ending the program would save taxpayers money, and remove an undue burden on Americans to register. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R – CA), another of the bill’s authors, added that conscription was not consisting with America’s tradition of freedom and liberty.

Though conscription on a limited basis was used during the Civil War by both sides, the first massive use of the military draft in the US was World War 1, when the wildly unpopular war attracted almost no volunteers. Americans were also conscripted during World War 2, the Korean War, and finally the Vietnam War.

Though no drafts happened after the Vietnam War, in 1980 President Carter issued a presidential proclamation reinstating the Selective Service registration system. This was a response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Author: Jason Ditz

Since there’s been no active draft in 40 years, why make American men register upon reaching their 18th birthday? Such registration should have ended no later than 5 years after the draft itself ended? It’s been a large waste of money – money that could have been used for physical infrastructure repairs. The levees could have been repaired to the degree that New Orleans would have been saved from the terrible devastation and loss of over 1800 lives.
Two Republican Congressmen – Mike Coffman of Oregon and Dana Rohrabaher of California, along with Democrat Congressman Pete DeFazio of Oregon proposed a bill to put an end to draft registration .. now, it’s time for the leadership to put this bill up for a vote .. and for the House to pass it.

Strider73

While no one has actually been drafted since 1973, the “backdoor draft” (stop-loss) certainly had widespread use early in the current wars. Obama effectively ended it by making sure the civilian job market stayed as anemic as possible. No need to force the troops to stay in when only unemployment and poverty await on the outside.

An interesting footnote: Though Puerto Rico became a US colony in 1898 after the Spanish-American War, PRs did not become citizens until 1917 — so they could be drafted into World War I.